Toy Story 1 review

Since Toy Story 4 is out now and I have the first two on tape and the third on DVD, I might as well get to doing a review of the original three. I did this in advance of the new movie’s release, but I thought that I’d wait to make it random blog posts until after I reviewed the newest installment in the movie franchise in July’s post. Well, I hope that you enjoy this post.

We begin ordinarily enough. A kid is playing with toys. The evil Mr. Potato Head is robbing people and he is confronted by Sherriff Woody. While “One-Eyed Bart” has a dog with a built in force field, Woody has a dinosaur that eats force field dogs. One-Eyed Bart is sent to jail (a baby’s crib) before the kid plays with Woody around the house.

This kid has a birthday party coming up soon and he takes his baby sister Molly downstairs. When he leaves his toys alone, they come to life. Woody gathers people for an emergency staff meeting. It does seem like the toys have fun playing with each other. We see their different interactions with each other as the scene develops. Woody is infatuated with Bo Peep.

Woody talks loud enough about things that you’d think other people in the house could hear him, but we probably aren’t supposed to think about that. A move is happening soon and Woody wants to make sure that everyone has a moving buddy.

The toys are informed that the birthday party of Andy, the kid from earlier, has been moved to today. This does freak the toys out, even more so when they see the people gathering for the party. A bunch of toy soldiers go out with the baby monitor in order to learn information they wouldn’t otherwise learn about the presents in advance of the other children showing up. One of them gets injured when he is accidently stepped on, but I guess that he might be okay later or he could be stuck that way forever. I guess that we shouldn’t be concerned.

Mr. Potato Head wants there to be a Mrs. Potato Head. It doesn’t seem like there are any new toys out at first. Woody is certain that there is nothing to worry about. But a surprise present is brought out and chaos ensues. They learn about the new toy which is a Buzz Lightyear. He believes that he really is Buzz and doesn’t understand that he’s a toy just yet. At least I think that’s the takeaway from this part.

All of the toys really like Buzz, except for Woody who seems to have an inferiority complex against him. Buzz mentions his back story that is printed on the back of his capsule that he came in. Buzz says that he can fly and seems like he can, but Woody thinks otherwise.

While Woody is originally certain that he has nothing to worry about, soon Andy’s life revolves around Buzz with Andy even going so far as to redecorate the room despite the fact that he’s moving soon and you’d think that would be time and money that wouldn’t need to be spent, although I guess a kid could do that would want to and be capable of doing that on his own.

There are issues that Woody continues to have with Buzz, even going so far as to outright mock him due to Buzz thinking that he’s the real Buzz Lightyear. He takes off the helmet, which Buzz initially reacts in a negative manner to before realizing that the air is safe.

The toys show Buzz a child named Cid that likes to torture toys. He blows up a soldier. Woody, in a clear set up for later, says that he’d like to see Buzz as a crater made by Cid. Buzz did really want to stop any issues from happening.

After learning that Andy was going to Pizza Planet and could only bring one toy, Woody wanted to make sure that Buzz was out of the picture by trying to trap him between a part of a piece of furniture and the wall of the room, but an accident causes Buzz to fall out the window instead. This leads the toys to turn on Woody, but he’s saved by Andy who takes him to Pizza Planet since Buzz is missing. Buzz is revealed to be okay and sneaks onboard the car with Woody while the other toys try to rescue him, not realizing that he’s not there anymore.

Buzz fights with Woody and they are knocked out of the car with it leaving without them. A lot of Buzz’s back story seems to be blatantly stolen from Star Wars as he says that his enemy, Zerg, is working on a device that can destroy a whole planet and Woody tries to vein to convince Buzz that he’s a toy.

When he notices that a Pizza Planet truck arrives at the gas station, he convinces Buzz to ride with it as he knows he can’t return to Andy’s room without Buzz as they might not accept him. Woody has a rough ride due to trying to stay hidden, but comes up with a way to hide under the cover of trash from the restaurant to sneak into the place. Woody tries to help reunite them with Andy, but Buzz is still confused and goes into a toy game with aliens where Woody has to follow him to try to rescue him.

The toys in this game obey the rules and laws of the claw. After one of them is chosen by Cid, he realizes that a Buzz is in there and tries to get it. While Woody tries to escape with Buzz, the toys in the game make sure that Buzz goes since the claw chose him. Woody winds up stuck with him.

At Cid’s house, he gives the alien toy to his dog Spud and messes with his sister’s Hannah’s toys when he switches the head of one of her dolls with a dinosaur toy of him. Woody seeks to escape with Buzz, but the other toys Cid has freaks them out and they aren’t able to leave yet as a result.

Andy’s toys are still looking for Buzz outside and they learn that Woody is missing. This worries Bo, but Mr. Potato Head is more convinced of Woody’s guilty because of them. Rex still doesn’t know what to think as he believes that Woody wouldn’t be capable of such things.

Cid tortures Woody some by using a magnifying glass to cause his face to burn some. But he runs off to get Pop Tarts and leaves the door open. Woody seeks to escape with Buzz, but Spud prevents them from getting out of the house leaving the two to get separated. This is when Buzz is left in a room by himself and sees a commercial advertising toys like himself. He has it in his mind that he should be able to fly, unlike what the commercial. This leads him to try to fly out the window, but instead, he falls down a floor and loses one of his arms.

Woody escapes from the closet that he hid in and sees Hannah playing with the one armed Buzz. She is playing with her headless dolls. Woody tricks Hannah into leaving and wants Buzz to snap out of his odd state of mine. But he has an idea to use the window to get back to his house with Christmas lights that seem to get longer at one point. But they still don’t trust him since Buzz isn’t there.

Buzz doesn’t offer Woody much help outside of throwing his detached arm to Woody. (Another thing that was blatantly stolen from Star Wars: missing limbs.) This fools Slinky Dog for a bit, but they learn that only an arm is there and abandon helping Woody. Thus, the lights that he threw over to them fall to the ground that is between the two houses and probably confuses anyone who might see it.

The toys in Cid’s room fixes Buzz’s arm by reattaching it. (A little late, much?) But Cid shows up to his room with a big rocket. While he wants to use it to blow up Woody, Woody hides successfully and then Buzz becomes the target instead. The rocket that somehow Cid ordered on his own or one or both of his possibly very irresponsible parents bought for him is taped to Buzz, but sudden rain prevents anything from happening right away so Cid sets the launch for the morning.

Andy misses his toys that his mother can’t find anywhere and Bo wishes that Woody knew how much that Andy misses him. While stuck under the crate that he might have gotten under on his own but then heavy things might have been put on it preventing him from leaving. He convinces Buzz to help him but Cid’s alarm goes off and Buzz is taken.

Woody rallies the rest of Cid’s toys to help them as they helped Hannah’s toys by reattaching them to the right body. He orchestrates a plan as he notices that the moving van of Andy shows up. The toys get a light fixture off in some manner and ring the doorbell, tricking the dog into going outside as the rest of them escape outside to where Cid is.

The toys all get into place before Woody and the other toys enact their plan. He talks to Cid and all of the toys come to life and surround Cid, freaking him out and possibly scarring him for life. This gets him to run off and he is freaked out by toys when he encounters his sister with her doll.

Buzz and Woody have to leave in order to get with Andy’s family as they move away. While Buzz gets stuck in a fence and wants Woody to go on without him, Woody helps him through it, going back to help him. While it seems that they two toys are safe in the moving truck, Spud comes and chases them. This leaves Buzz under a car to escape from the dog while Woody goes inside the moving van to get out the remote control car.

The other toys attack him while he still manages to get save Buzz and trap the dog in a traffic jam that is surrounded by other cars. He is thrown out of the van before the toys realize their mistake which leaves Slinky Dog to try to get RC (the remote control car), Woody, and Buzz. The car’s battery runs out and Slinky Dog loses his grip on them.

Despite it seeming like people would notice this, all of the cars seem completely obvious to the toy’s adventures. Woody uses his match to lit the rocket to catch up, but it goes out before he can use it. He then uses Buzz’s helmet like a magnifying glass to get the rocket lit. This returns the car to the moving van, but Woody is concerned that they will blow up. Buzz and Woody are able to escape the exploding rocket and fly to safety in the car where Andy is.

The movie ends with the toys gathered in their new house for Christmas, learning of new presents that are gotten. One of them is a Mrs. Potato Head, which thrills Mr. Potato Head. I do wonder why there can’t be an unmarried Potato Head or if they have to get together with other Potato Heads whether they want to do it or not. But I guess I shouldn’t worry about it and take things too seriously. One of the gifts that Andy gets is a puppy.

Well, that’s it for this movie and I hope that you liked this review, even if I’m pointing out all sorts of the flaws with the movie that happen from time to time. But I guess that a lot of great things take some of the inspiration from Star Wars. I could write feelings on the movie, but I won’t. I do that sometimes when I review movies like this at the end. Anyways, that’s all for this random post. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.